NEW YORK — President Barack Obama plunged into donor-rich New York on Wednesday, his first fundraising sweep of the city since announcing his re-election bid this month, with a lament that he has not seen his wish for less-polarizing politics realized. . . .

“Today was a fun day,” Obama said at his first fundraising event at Corzine’s apartment. “Nobody checked my ID at the door. But it was also a serious day because part of what happened this morning was me trying to remind the press and trying to remind both parties that what we do in politics is not a reality show. It’s serious.”

While Obama took in millions from his rich liberal buddies in NYC, the South suffered the worst tornado outbreak since April 3, 1974.

(WaPo) — A scar of destruction and death runs across the Deep South after the nation’s worst tornado outbreak in 37 years killed at least 250 people in six states from Mississippi to Virginia.

Hundreds of thousands of people are without power, as is a nuclear power plant that operators said was shut down safely. . . .

“The outbreak is the biggest in terms of tornadoes and in terms of impact since ’74 and it’s possible that its actually bigger than ’74,” said Harold Brooks, research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

The April 3, 1974, outbreak sparked twisters across the eastern United States, claiming 310 lives, Brooks said. Wednesday’s outbreak may be most similar to the tornado outbreak of March 21, 1932, when 332 people were killed, including 268 in Alabama, he said. Nothing, however, comes close to the destruction of March 18, 1925, when 747 people died, most of them along the path of a single twister, after the so-called Tri-State Tornado tore up Missouri, Indiana and Illinois.